


Wrapped in Beautiful Skin, I See It Regardless of Disguise

by KriKee



Category: Chinese Mythology, Naruto
Genre: Allusions to Chinese Mythology, Alternate Universe, Captivity, Horror, More Like Straight Up Referencing CHinese Mythology, Other, Politics, Referenced Torture, Romance, Slow Burn, Worldbuilding, gods and demons, help it got bigger before I started writing, save me from myself, this originally started off as a fluffy hypothermia fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-16
Updated: 2019-03-16
Packaged: 2019-11-19 04:56:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18131252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KriKee/pseuds/KriKee
Summary: Curiosity kills, especially when the curious one isn’t human in the first place. The Emperor’s puppet master wreaks havoc, a brave warrior is the only one to notice. How can anyone love a monster?





	Wrapped in Beautiful Skin, I See It Regardless of Disguise

**Author's Note:**

> For the Naruto Rare Pair Support Spring Kink Meme. Check their tumblr and pillowfort accounts for more excellent works involving rare pairs.  
> Prompts for this story: “Fire and ice” and “Her”.
> 
> Inspired by this quote “A frigid voice from somewhere in those January howls had told her to kill them, kill them all.” - Don Roth, Snow Blind

Excerpt from _The First Sutra of That Which Is Heard_

_Before the Sage ascended beyond the cycle of reincarnation to true peace, he created the Jade Emperor and the Shinigami to watch over the land of the middle-world. He spoke to the venerable Emperor and the stern Guardian of the Dead and proclaimed there were to watch, judge and assist the world’s order from the lowest of the Narakas to the highest of realms._

_He spoke of his goddess mother and her companion, they who helped tame the middle-world’s monsters and spirits, placed all things in their place and with a wave of her hand shaped the moon to hold back the drowning sea of the Narakas._

_He spoke of his mortal father; he who stole the heart of a goddess, carried it through deserts of fire, shielded it from the rages of winter storms, bore it through the all-devouring waters, and never once set it upon the grasping hands of earth or exposed it to the incandescent eyes of lightning._

_This mortal man who earned the love and loyalty of the moon goddess, ate the pill of immortality of from graceful hands and ascended with her. He spoke of his own creation from the tamed qi of the world._

_He left the brothers, the partners, the enemies. The Sage transcended in a ripple of purest light. The two brothers took the strings of the world’s weave and_ pulled _, taking to their domain that which was theirs to rule. So they watched, So they ruled._

_Thus did the threads of the world, bound by the brothers to their familial order, hold or fray and drop the pattern. And all is Right. The Rules of the Heavenly Ones were accorded. The Mandates of the Deathly Ones were accorded._

_Lands rose and fell, merged and parted like a great moss upon the trunk of an ancient tree until the Middle-land was united under one Emperor._

_Perhaps in a mirror of this world, it would not be so. Perhaps, in another reflection, there was no peace between the brothers, the middle-land did not unit, perhaps in that world or any other of the worlds as countless as the stars the world was Not Ordered. The goddess mother showed her mirrors to the Sage, and the Sage wept, and became the snow. He whispered it to the Brothers and their howls became winter’s laments and ocean’s fury. Each generation in turn heard the watercoloured whisper until all Knew it to be true._

_And the people of the middle-world fear not the cracked reflections of the worlds in the mirrors, for they are the faces seen through the rippling water of a rapid stream; enchanted, broken and easily forgotten and ignored._

_Here, it is Ordered. Here, the world is correct._

The monk closed the book and bowed his head in prayer. After the sacred breathing of six-four-eight he stood and fetched the scroll that had arrived with the dawn chorus. The cinnabar seal gleamed dull in the light, weighted by centuries and as crisp as a honed edge.

“Send for the Lord and Lady; the Emperor addresses them.”

**Author's Note:**

> Title is fromdescriptionari.com/quotes/monster: “In that empty scream is the pain of the indifferent, of a monster who sold its soul for ease and instead found hell. It can wrap itself in beautiful skin or the rancid hide of the decaying creatures of the abyss, yet I see it regardless of disguise.” - By Angela Abraham, @daisydescriptionari, January 18, 2019. 
> 
>  
> 
> Based off the character and story of Daji from Fengshan Yanyi.


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